The use of mobile communication devices has increased dramatically in recent years. These mobile devices include devices that communicate with a network of wireless transceivers or base stations, which are organized as an array of geographic service areas or “cells.” An example of this type of wireless network is a cellular network used in conjunction with a mobile or cellular telephone. A cell can be defined as a limited geographic area completely surrounding the antenna of a base station that uses an omnidirectional antenna covering a full 360 degrees. A cell may also be defined as a portion of a geographic area surrounding a base station that uses multiple directional antennas that each covers less than 360 degrees (e.g., 4 antennas each covering 90 degrees or more, thus each defining a cell).
Whenever a user of a mobile device approaches a boundary between two cells (which includes some overlap between the cells), communications between the mobile device and the communication network may be transferred from one cell to another, depending on the relative strength of the cellular transmitters of each cell's base station. This transfer or “handover” involves command and data exchanges between the mobile device and each base station, as well as between the base stations. Such exchanges utilize a percentage of the bandwidth needed for general communications, and thus represent an overhead cost of operating the network. The actual handover also takes a certain amount of time to complete, introducing small delays and potentially a momentary interruption in the data exchanges between the mobile device and the network. With the increased use of mobile devices in video and high-speed data applications, and with the increased demand for base stations and networks that can support larger numbers of mobile devices, these delays or “latencies” introduced during handovers may decrease the performance of the base stations and the overall network to unacceptable levels.